How to Train Your Dog to Protect Goats

Hello, At this age pup needs more interactions with the chickens to be on a long training leash and not left alone with them yet. Using the long training leash, you can correct pup for any chasing attempts and reward calmness around the birds. Unlike large livestock, many livestock guarding dogs won't naturally bond with birds and guard due to that same family type bond. Often chickens are guarded on a property because pup sees them as part of the overall property boundaries, and they guard everything within that property, not because of a bond like with large livestock, but due to protectiveness of the property. This protectiveness often develops more as pup gets older. The typically approach to raising a puppy from a young age with the animals you want them to later guard, like with sheep, doesn't tend to work as well with chickens. Pup is most likely to chew and harass the chickens - making pup a threat instead of help with the birds. I would work on teaching pup Leave It around the chickens, and correcting any harassing on a long leash, either confining pup, keeping them with you, or having them stay inside your home or a kennel until trained around the birds - or stay with animals they are bonded to if they have been raised with a larger animal and are safe with them - such as sheep. Then spend intentional time training the puppy to leave the birds alone with you around, or setting up fencing for the birds that you can easily move around for foraging. The fencing alone, along with your instruction when you are able to work no training, should be enough to keep a puppy this age away from the birds, allowing them to still roam the property and develop a good sense of loyalty to the overall property, which includes your birds for later protection. You can also purchase pet barrier device for outside use, and place that inside the area where the chicken fence is, moving it when you move the fencing around for the birds. The device will correct pup automatically with pup wearing the corresponding collar, if pup tries to break into the birds' fencing area. This will only work if the birds are fenced though, since the birds will roam away from the pet barrier device without a chicken wire fence. Best of luck training, Caitlin Crittenden

Oct. 17, 2022

Hello Healer, At this age pup cannot be left alone with the farm animals. Pup needs to be confined when you are away, given instruction and supervision when you are around to help him learn the farm rules, then once pup has matured a bit and learned only good things, pup will be able to be around the animals more as an adult. If left alone with the animals without you there to intervene that could lead to long term bad habits that make it extremely difficult for pup to ever be left alone with them. It's best to prevent the bad habit in the first place while at the same time exposing pup to them with you there to teach good habits - which will become the long term habit later, instead of that bad habit becoming the long term habit. German Shepherds are not commonly used as livestock guardians in the since that they bond with the animals and protect them due to being raised with them. Shepherds tend to guard livestock because they are territorial and are wanting to run everything out of their territory. Therefore, they are often trained to leave animals alone on the farm, rather than trying to bond them with the animals, teaching boundaries as they grow, so they will roam their boundary to keep everything that shouldn't be there out of the boundary - which has the effect of helping to protect the animals within the territory too. The basic instincts related to property guarding with a breed like a Shepherd or Grate Dane versus a livestock guarding who bonds with the livestock such as a Great Pyrenees as often different. Occasionally you will see exceptions though, since German Shepherds are bred to be very multi-functional in their tasks. Best of luck training, Caitlin Crittenden

May 9, 2022